Jim Devine:
>I think that it's a mistake to assume that every author -- or every author
>you dislike (for whatever reason) -- _must_ write about Latin America.
Sorry, I was under the impression we were discussing the class character of
16th to 18th century Latin America. If it was "feudal" as Ellen Meiksins
Wood states it was, it is necessary to examine how different classes
related to each other. This requires reading material like Steve Stern's
book on the Incas, D.A. Brading's "Miners and Merchants in Bourbon Mexico:
1763-1810", etc.
>Since the capitalist disease -- the cancerous world-wide expansion of
>capitalism -- seems to have started in Western Europe, specifically in
>England, it seems valid for the hated Brenner to study that area of the
>world.
But I reject the idea that capitalism started in the English countryside.
>But that doesn't imply that Marx's concepts -- his general theory of
>historical materialism & political economy, not specific stuff like his
>early belief in the automatic stage theory of history -- are wrong.
Not at all. For example, his writings on India are plagued with error but
his method allowed Indian Communist M.N. Roy to develop an analysis of how
England underdeveloped India.
>Folks like Trotsky knew that Russian capitalism was different from German
>capitalism, but they also didn't reject all lessons learned from studying
>Germany in their effort to understand Russia. Trotsky never threw CAPITAL
>into the dust-bin of history.
Is that what I am doing, throwing Capital in the dustbin? I would never do
that. I am too firm a believer in recycling.
>I think this is the solution to the never-ending Blaut/Brenner
>Battle. Latin American forced-labor modes of exploitation (the mita, etc.)
>"were drawn into the whirlpool of an international market dominated by the
>capitalistic mode of production" (i.e., Europe-centered industrial
>capitalism). So, as with U.S. slavery, the "barbaric" conditions of forced
>labor -- the mita and similar -- were combined with the "civilized"
>conditions of the world market dominated by industrial capital, we see the
>worst of both worlds.
I reject this analysis. Modern South Africa's economy revolved around
mining based on unfree labor. The AFL-CIO boycotted South African coal in
the 1970s because it was produced by what they characterized as indentured
servants. If this country was anything but capitalist, including most of
all the mines, then we just have different ideas about what Marxism means
and how to apply it.
Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
